Leslie

For Dec 2, 2009
Now that I have done six interviews, I have begun to think about what member checking might look like. I am currently working on transcribing/logging/notetaking from the interviews. My current plan is to work up a one-ish page document that is my interpretation of the interview. I'll try to post more closer to next Wednesday so that I can get your feedback about my methods of member-checking.

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For Nov 18, 2008
I am reading up on interviews. I'm attaching two articles that Connie sent my way. They are reading these this semester in 791 and it is different than what we read related to interviewing. Read if you want. I'll generate some questions (based on the articles and the interviews I'm conducting this weekend) for discussion on Wednesday.

Thanks a bunch for your feedback on my interview questions earlier this week.

L

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For Nov 4, 2009
As I start to engage with my data, I think it would be helpful to watch you engage with the data as well, and then to compare our approaches. I am hoping that during my slot next week we can look at my research questions and listen to a slice of data together. My approved research questions are in the memo I posted last week but here they are again:

How do visual art teachers view their experience in a collaborative inquiry group?

• In what ways do the participants view this experience as collaborative? Non-collaborative?
• In what ways do the participants view this experience as content-specific? Unrelated to their content?
• In what ways do the participants view this experience as context-specific? Unrelated to their context(s)?

By virtue of assuming the role of a participant in this study, I am also studying my own experience within the CIG. I am interested in how my multiple roles of visual art teacher (participant)/facilitator/researcher are made in/visible within the CIG. Thus, the following sub-questions allow me to investigate my roles and experience within the CIG:

• How do I negotiate the multiple roles of participant, facilitator, and researcher?
• How are these roles made in/visible within the collaborative inquiry group?
• How do participants view my role(s)?

I will email you a link to the audio file in case you want to hear it ahead of time.
See you Wednesday.

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For Oct 21, 2009

Hi all - I now have some type of infection and swollen face. I will be contacting you sometime later on tomorrow to let you know if I will be able to make our meeting. Sorry to keep you in limbo.
I wanted to upload the memo that I have resubmitted to my dissertation committee just to keep you updated. It would help me if we could discuss the third part (the methods table). I have some specific questions I'd like to get your feedback on at some point.
MemoforCommittee.doc

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For October 7, 2009

Freese, A. R. (2006). Reframing one's teaching: Discovering our teacher selves through reflection and inquiry. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(1), 100-119.
Freese-2006-ReframingOne'sOwnTeaching.pdf
Jill - this was a reading we both listed.
I'm planning to read it for next Wednesday. If you have time to read it, let's talk about it.

Other things I'd like to talk about if there is time:
1) How to handle all the data - should I use software? Could something else be just as effective? What role should video play? (I will post this question on the discussion board of the home page)
2) Look at a short transcription from my first group meeting.

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For September 23, 2009

Right now I am working with this image in an attempt to illustrate the conceptual context of my research space. I'd like some time to talk about it on Wednesday. Specifically, I'm wondering how choosing these three circles (collaboration, content-specific, context-specific) and the overlapping spaces relates to "lists" of effective PD characteristics.

Also, I'd like to talk about the article I loaded for last week (Sept 16). I would like to dialogue about ideas of power related to group facilitators. Tonight, a friend showed me a quote that I'm also pondering: "Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas are always initially resisted." (Hugh MacLeod)

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For September 16, 2009

First, here are my ideas about an issue I am currently wrestling with: compensating research participants. Initially, I assumed I would talk about this candidly at the beginning of the study. However, a friend reminded me that participants/intervewees are often more than happy to help and attempt to tell you what it is you want to hear. She challenged me to think about the possible affect telling my CIG about my doc program, a dissertation, and my attempt to appropraitely compensate them might make them even more desirous to "help" by telling me what they think I want to hear. So I'm interested in your feedback about the following:

• What are the possible outcomes/affects of telling my participants up front that this is a doctoral dissertation study? (Power relationships, trust issues, etc.) How do I balance the desire to be honest and compensate them with the desire to have them speak openly and honestly rather than tell me what I want to hear?
• Participants are already receiving lots of "benefits" as a result of being participants in the larger grant project. I am basically compensating them for their permission to video tape and their time with me in interviews. I hope to compensate them in ways that they deem meaningful. What do you anticipate this means? Do you have any ideas or advice?
• What can a researcher do to communicate to participants that there is nothing they can do or say that would be more or less helpful in an interview?
• When should I introduce conversations about compensation? (I had to mention it on the one-page description I sent to participants. I said, "For your willingness to take part in this study, I will compensate you in ways that are meaningful to you, which we will discuss as our project moves along."

A note about sources: I struggled to find practical articles that talked about this issue. I asked Connie and she freely shared her experience, but told me that unfortunately her decisions weren't guided much by any specific articles.

This week I am reading the following article passed on to me via Carla...
Hope to refine/rethink my ideas about my role as a facilitator.

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September 9, 2009 (Posted after the fact...)

I offered my proposal in its current state to the members of the group. It provided everyone with the most recent thinking/writing about my dissertation study. I knew that the following areas would need some attention and asked group members for their feedback:

• What about "learning?" Am I looking for it? How have I defined it? Why didn't I give a definition of it?
• How do I negotiate my desire to conduct a study with art educators when comparative statistics aren't available to demonstrate that they are more marginalized than other content area teachers in regard to professional development?
• Participatory Action Research - How have I strayed from the ideal model? Talk about the tensions but don't explicitly describe why the tensions exist.
• Rewording research questions to better articulate my area of interest.

Based on the feedback, I have thought about my study in terms of:

• observing what is happening in something "new"
• situating the research questions in larger questions in order to differentiate them from the research problem at hand
• thinking about the space CIGs create (which might include learning opportunities) rather than thinking specifically about the learning that takes place.